Escapist
by Be3
Summary: To solve a case, Mr. Holmes must rusticate in the country for a while. There are some minor inconveniences, though. Rated K because I do not believe it is appropriate for 5-years-old to read about murders. All personages are property of sir Conan Doyle.


A/N: an evening in Dartmoor…

I sat at a granite slab. After a week its mossy dampness felt the most natural thing in the world; I named it The slab, but drew the line at My. Cartwright might have appropriated a whole graveyard already, but I had more respect for our neolithic predecessors.

The boy fairly blossomed here. On the other hand, he became less cautious each passing day; I would probably have to send him back before long, seeing as my warnings fell on deaf ears.

And his culinary preferences are abominable... that is, if there is any other cheese to choose at the grocer's, and local farmers do value brown sugar over chocolate.

It was always so much easier to weather a storm or waylay a felon when I could amuse myself with distracting Watson.

It also was so much easier to draw my own deductions when I had the data first-hand, not excavated from under his Stranded embellishments.

There were so many questions vital for me that he had no way of answering while guarding that wayward American - how often was the hound let out (Mortimer told us it has been seen; it was still unclear whether it'd been let out on purpose or run away... I hoped for the former, but kept a loaded revolver on my person at all times); will Lestrade heed my call and come down from London (I felt rather confident on that point, but the uncertainty and dullness of my exile put me on edge so much that thrice I had to stop myself from addressing him immediately); did Barrymore tell his criminal brother-in-law about the case being investigated by Mr. Sherlock Holmes (Selden was sufficiently clever to surmise the other man hiding on the moor might indeed be my humble self, and more than sufficiently violent to kill on this conjecture, his nerves being probably in worse state than mine)... Come to that, did Barrymore know that it was I who got Selden convicted in the first place? Was it less dangerous for me to remain stationary or to wander - could I risk the boy's life like that?

I was almost sure that we were quite safe during the waking hours - the telescope of Mr. Frankland, which I took so long to identify (it was almost sad to finally solve this dearly not-deadly puzzle) served equally well to keep all inhabitants of the moor in their respective holes.

I recalled the day of Dr. Mortimer's visit - Watson thought the man was a member of Something Hunt; his intuition beat my logic - they do hunt men on a regular basis here.

I especially disliked the Princetown warders. Inept enough to let a murderer escape, hopeless enough to not organise a thorough search of the mire, and bothersome enough to stop every suspicious character - me, for example.

Watson... I sighed. I didn't lie to him about that blackmail business in London; it still required my attention, and here I was, hiding away in the middle of Grimpen mire, thrown back to the Stone Age. In fact, the Stone Age was likely a cleaner one with less questionable morals and people searching strength in unity...

The air was cooling by the minute; grassy slopes blackened against the saffron-scarlet sky, where some lost clouds sailed southwards in a vague and incoherent manner. I shivered in my too-thin overcoat... gusty winds, irregular fires, cold meals began to tax my admittedly iron constitution.

At least my friend had the luxury of a hearth and a glass of wine. Sir Henry will know something about that.

A wail pierced my ears, and I caught myself standing up. The Hound. Even if I determined the exact direction from where the sound came, to attempt navigating the moor now would be an insult to my intelligence. There was a foreboding in it, a keen complaint.

Watson will be concerned about my health... in all probability, he won't mention the cocaine; he is too fine a gentleman... It was difficult at first, to the point of my staying in the cave for days in a row. Odd, how unlike a sepulchre it feels once you suffered a bad stomach-ache there. Pity about Cartwright having to watch it all.

By now, the worst has already passed; Providence looked out for us. I spotted the first twinkling star - Watson insisted on it being Venus.

My hands grew cold. The crumbs of yesterday's loaf in my pockets offered little for blind deduction - a favourite game of mine, and often a risky one. Tonight I will scatter them on the moor - an animalistic instinct of misleading a predator from one's lair. The very reason why I had to order my brandy from London.

I yawned. There is indeed one advantage to country air that Watson so ardently preaches - you sleep soundlier here than amid the fogs and fumes of London. Chances that you won't open your eyes afterwards are practically the same.

I stretched, and hopped down from The slab. A full moon was not a thing to be wasted; I should shake the melancholy off before it finished what a withdrawal, a hellish hound and its devil of a master, an escaped killer and sheer idleness failed to achieve. A walk was in order.

And in the daylight, I shall read my Boswell's report once again.

If only Watson knew how much his reports meant for me.


End file.
